


Darkness is Oblivion

by Sapphic_R



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, But rightfully so, F/F, Nightmares, Original villain - Freeform, Scared of a Crush, Slow Burn, scared of the dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 02:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17336621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_R/pseuds/Sapphic_R
Summary: The Doctor takes her friends on another chaotic adventure, falling into the path of her worst nightmare. Emotions run wild and fear gets the better of her, leaving her surprisingly vulnerable with the one person who is constantly on her mind.Written mostly from Yaz's perspective, Yaz has a crush.





	Darkness is Oblivion

“No, no, no, this can’t be right.” The Doctor muttered in an ominous, yet confused tone as she rushed back from the doors of the TARDIS to the console. Her face fell, however, upon checking the monitor, which must have confirmed that they were at the correct location, and in the correct time period.

“What’s up, Doc?” Graham questioned from the door.

“The lights.” She looked like she might cry.

“What lights? I don’t see no lights.”

“Exactly, Ryan, there aren’t any. But there should beee.” The Doctor groaned, hands being thrown wildly into the air.

Yaz felt a guilty rise of pleasure at the sight of the Doctor’s cute frustration and struggled to fashion her face into a questioning frown as opposed to the smile of adoration that was threatening to make an appearance.

“Something we should know?” Graham’s voice was hesitant.

The Time Lord sighed, before launching into an explanation about the microplanet (“Technically it’s just a big, inhabited space-rock!”) they’d arrived at, and how the aliens (“They’re like you really, but they have a few modifications.. they can adapt their body to whatever gas fills the air!”) that live here were supposed to have discovered ‘The Floating Lights’ by now, and she told them how the air here was supposedly filled with a spectacular display of colour for an entire era. She did attempt to tell the three humans what the lights were and how they worked, but apparently British education can only reach so far. A few of the words rang bells in Yaz’s head from her chemistry A level, but she was at a loss overall. The concept sounded like the northern lights though, so she just pictured that and nodded along, pleased to see that Graham and Ryan appeared to be in exactly the same position.

“So, as I was saying, there should be pretty lights all around us, unless..” She paused to scratch her head. “No. It’s definitely now.” And sadness and worry took over her beautiful face.

“Could we skip forward a few years or something? Maybe you’re a bit too early?” Yaz felt it was a reasonable suggestion, but the Doctor wouldn’t have any of it.

“I’m positive they’d started by now.” The Doctor shook her head as she made for the exit, sonic in hand. “So, I need to find out what’s gone, or potentially still going, wrong.”

The three waited in a tense anticipation as the sound of the sonic filled the air and then stopped abruptly.

“Wha-AAAARRRGGHH!”

“What’s wrong?!” Panic surged through her body as Yaz ran to the Doctor’s scream.

“My sonic! Something in the atmosphere must’ve backchannelled all the energy, causing it to burn up!” She was gaping at Yaz and brandishing at the air like a child in a strop. “Don’t think there’ll be any lasting damage, mind.” She added eventually, examining her hand closely before reaching to extract her sonic screwdriver from the snow. Hang on..

“Snow? Doctor, there’s snow on a space-rock?” Yaz stepped out onto the cushioned rock and into the chilly, growing darkness of the surroundings, heading over to the Doctor. She heard the other two stepping out after her, their curiosity piqued.

“Of course there is! Well, snow of sorts, I’m guessing most of it’s probably just dust.” Yaz knew to just accept this and not question it any further, “but I wouldn’t go around calling Emmoria a space-rock, the Emmorians would be well offended.”

Ignoring Yaz’s protests that the Doctor herself had called the microplanet a space-rock, she continued to speak, more to herself than her companions;

“Something is really wrong here though, air doesn’t just revert sonic energy like that, and there should be lights! Where have their lights gone?” The combination of distress and intrigue was growing.

“Right, so I take it we’re staying to investigate then?” Graham, hands in his jacket pockets, made to move towards the apparently civilised area at the base of the hill they were standing on, and with a keen nod from the Doctor, they set off determinedly through the dust-come-snow covering. They were heading down to what looked like a village; a group of little stone houses fanned out around a central monument that couldn’t be made out in the dimming light of what could only be assumed as the nearest star.

As Yaz studied the growing village however, she felt an uneasiness building inside her and she suddenly stopped dead at the realisation of what was wrong. It was so obvious, she could have kicked herself!

“There are no lights.”

“Yeah, we’ve established that, Yaz.” Ryan rolled his eyes as if she had just told him that this village wasn’t on earth.

‘No, I mean there are no lights at all, not even in the houses. It’s almost dark, and no one’s put a light on, or even lit a fire. Unless they have night vision here?” She asked uncertainly, hoping that the Doctor could confirm this possibility, but the Doctor stopped walking too and smacked a hand to her forehead.

“Yaz! What would I do without you?! There should be lights as well as The Lights! Of course there should be!” She grinned at Yaz, triggering a blush to creep up her cheeks. But then the grin dropped, “Wait, no, that’s not a good thing. Ooooohhhh that’s not good at all.”

“What does it mean, Doc?” There was fear in Graham’s voice, and was Yaz imagining it, or did he already seem to know the answer that was about to escape the Doctor’s lips?

“They’re scared to put the lights on.” She barely whispered it.

“How can you tell that from here?” Ryan enquired.

“I don’t know really.. it just feels about right. But anyway.. can anyone else feel that?”

“What?” They chorused.

The Doctor hesitated, then, “Never mind” she muttered, and started walking ahead of the other three with a slightly different energy.

The feeling of the group had shifted, an anxious tension cutting through the silence as they scrambled over the last stretch of open land, closing the gap between them and the first row of houses. It was eerily quiet, and Yaz couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. Half a beat later and her fears were confirmed as a small silhouette appeared between the two settlements directly in front of them.

“Hello?” The Doctor spoke cautiously, craning her head towards the figure.

“Who are you?” It was a child, who moved out into the last dregs of light as she spoke. She looked human, no more than 10 years old, and was wearing a lopsided beret which gave way to two plaits falling down to her cloaked waist.

“I’m the Doctor, and these are my mates; Yaz, Ryan and Graham.” She gestured to each of them as she spoke. “Do you mind me asking your name?” The Doctor asked her gently, evidently not wanting to scare the young girl.

“I’m Ava.” She replied timidly.

“Hi Ava.” The Time Lord smiled. “What are you doing out so late?”

Ava hung her head and spoke into her cloak; “I wanted to try and see them tonight.”  
“See who?” Graham was fastest to the question.

“You don’t.. know?” She looked up at them in confusion and amazement.

Yaz shook her head, “We’ve only just arrived here.”

“Do you think we could go somewhere to have a chat?” Said the Doctor.

She nodded eagerly. “I live through here.” And she led them merrily through a narrow path between houses towards the huge monument, which now appeared to be of a family, holding each other and gazing up to the sky.

They were greeted by a short, stern woman at the door, furious with her daughter for sneaking out again, and Ava was sent straight up to bed. Yaz felt guilty and uneasy intruding upon this family, but the Doctor, being the Doctor, didn’t seem to find anything amiss and composed herself ready to bombard the poor woman with questions.

“I apologise for my daughter, ever since it took her father, she’s been desperate to see ‘them’ and get him back. I haven’t had the heart to tell her what’s really happening.” Ava’s mother sighed, and Yaz could read her solemn expression even in the darkness of the tiny living area.

“What.. What is really happening?” The Doctor moved towards her.

“You can’t possibly not know? Where have you been?”

“We’re not from here, only just arrived.” Ryan spoke tentatively, expecting this to have an explosive reaction, but there was a prolonged silence before:

“Who are you then? Where did you come from? Why are you here?” The questions were asked with a rising tone of panic.

And so, the inevitable conversation began. Introductions were made as before, but this time more hesitantly. Ava’s mother was called Maud, and she was very intrigued to find out that she was entertaining space-time travellers, which, come to think of it, could be expected, but Yaz was yet to meet anyone else who found their appearance so interesting.

The Doctor’s first question was about the complete darkness of the town, a factor impossible to ignore considering they could barely see each other in the suffocating shadow of the room. It turns out her earlier suspicions had been spot on: the people here were scared to turn on any form of lights when darkness came. As to why, Yaz had never been more terrified at the thought.

“We’ve been living in fear and darkness, plagued by a monster that goes by the name of Oblivion.”

“I thought it was a myth.” The Doctor said faintly, cutting through the tense aftermath of Maud’s fearful words.

“You’ve heard of it?” Yaz was dreading the explanation, but eager to understand what was going on nonetheless. The Doctor nodded slowly and began to speak:

“Oblivion is a creature of darkness, said to be the most powerful and deadly omen of the universe.” She searched for Maud’s murmur of agreement before continuing gently. “It breathes a fear of darkness into the air around it but is attracted by any light that is made in response, using this as a locating mechanism for its prey. Those taken by Oblivion just disappear; encounters of it have been described as a darkness that literally swallows everything in its path.” Her eyes were alit with fear, fuelled by Maud’s confirmation that that is exactly what has happened here. “I always feared the legends when I was growing up, scared of the dark but terrified to turn on a light..”

“You were scared of the dark?” Graham cut in, astounded.

“Everyone’s afraid of something, Graham.” The Doctor responded defensively. “It stopped as I got older though, started to believe what everyone was telling me, that it was just made up. But now..” She looked around at them, and Yaz could feel more than see how anxious she really was.

“Now,” Maud continued for her, “Oblivion is residing on Emmoria, it’s been here for years and it’s what took my husband from me.”

“Years?” Yaz blurted out in shock. “It’s been here for that long?”

“We can’t even remember what it’s like to not be afraid.” Maud uttered sadly. “With every ounce of darkness comes a surge of fear, and every wink of sleep brings a world of unbearable nightmares. The only hope is the end foretold by prophecy.”

“Prophecy?” The word alerted all of the Doctors attention.

“The prophecy of The Statue right outside.” Everyone looked to the window, where the stone family could just be made out. “The plaque beneath it reads ‘Darkness is Oblivion until Darkness has an End.’ It is believed that the end stems from the sky, as that’s where they’re looking.”

“Who made it?” Ryan asked.

“The Statue makes itself, enchanted in the beginning by Emmoria herself. It’s always been there with relevance to whatever hardship our people face-”

“Oh yeah!” The Doctor jumped in excitement. “How could I forget one of the biggest attractions?!”

Hours later and they had finally settled to get some sleep. Maud would not let them go back outside to the TARDIS in the blackness of night, and so they were cramped with blankets in her living area. It was only now that Yaz was fully understanding what was meant by the fear being fed though the dark. Without the distraction of conversation, she was uncomfortably aware of every sound and every dark shape playing tricks on her mind. Graham and Ryan were already asleep across from her, and she could hear the restlessness of it, causing her to wonder whether it was indeed true that nightmares plagued all sleep around here. She was, undoubtedly, afraid.

“Doctor?” She whispered to the figure nestled in blankets next to her, causing her to jump.

“Yaz? What’s wrong?” She turned towards her, eyes scanning the dark.

“I don’t like this.” She breathed.

“No, I don’t like not being in the TARDIS either, but I promise it’ll just be tonight-”

“No that’s not what I meant, it’s this place, the darkness and nightmares. I’m.. I’m scared.” She forced herself to admit it, hoping that the Doctor might understand.

“Oh.” The Time Lord whispered softly. “If I’m really honest with you, Yaz, I’m scared too.”

Yaz shuffled over until they were almost touching and reached out to take the Doctor’s hand. Her heart was beating so fast it would surely give away her strong feelings for her friend, but she didn’t care. Right now, safety and comfort were what mattered.

“The End that Maud spoke of, that’s talking about you, isn’t it? You’re going to do what you always do- save everyone from the monsters.” As she spoke, Yaz could feel the heat emanating from the Doctor’s cheeks as she blushed.

“I will absolutely try my hardest to.” It was barely a whisper.

After that, sleep must have finally taken over Yaz’s body. She lay against the Time Lord, but that precious security could only protect her externally. Internally, it was a night of horrors: the team returned to Earth only to discover that Earth wasn’t there anymore; the Doctor was dead or dying on multiple occasions; Yaz was being ejected from the TARDIS; she woke up at home to discover that she had dreamt of the Doctor and TARDIS and had made it all up entirely; a colleague she despised was coming onto her and then turned into a revolting, scaly alien; and then she was being bullied at school again. All in all, when the time came to wake up, Yaz had never felt relief like it.

**The Doctor**

She lay awake as Yaz slept restlessly beside her, not letting go of her, as if that would make any difference to the nightmares she was evidently experiencing. The Doctor felt a huge responsibility to look after her friends, and yet she had just led them into the path of the nightmare that had haunted her childhood. This was going to be tricky. How could she save and look after the people looking up to her, when pure fear had been coursing through her body since the moment she arrived here? Her mind was racing, not allowing a coherent thought to form amongst the constant reminders of darkness, and the close proximity of a certain person.. Hang on. This didn’t happen. This wasn’t allowed. The Time Lord started to panic herself more at the realisation of a deep attraction. Ever since the thought of the two of them seeing each other had been planted by Yaz’s mum, The Doctor couldn’t shake it. But she couldn’t allow herself to fall in love, not again.

Eventually, she gave in to sleep, more out of being fed up with being awake and having nothing to do and everything to fear than out of tiredness. The Doctor liked to consider herself above sleep; it wasn’t a necessity. Before long however, she was falling into an endless time loop of actual nightmares. She was in a horrific cove of emptiness, completely alone with an overwhelming sense of loss. It was if she was embodying the atmosphere of a graveyard. An opening appeared after a while, begging her to follow a path that led her out to a miserably cold beach. Yaz was there, absent-mindedly walking towards her through the sand, but something was wrong. She ran to her, concern growing when Yaz continued to walk as though not seeing her. Studying herself, the Doctor realised she wasn’t real, she was merely spectacting and Yaz could neither see nor hear her. Tears started to fall, but the grief turned to alarm when the Doctor suddenly noticed what her friend was walking towards. She cried out in desperation and fear. The Doctor was then forced to watch (she physically couldn’t turn away, as though paralysed) as Yaz dissolved into the darkness of Oblivion itself. She was screaming, crying, begging for a way to save her as she gradually returned to consciousness to familiar shouts of her name.

**

The rest of the house’s occupants were barely awake when the Doctor started screaming in her sleep, but the sound was enough to make anyone jolt to full alertness. She must have been in agony, and it physically hurt for Yaz to see her like this. It took rather a lot of shouting and shaking to drag her out of the nightmare, to the point where Yaz was nearly crying too by the time the Doctor’s eyes were open.

“Nightmares got you as well then, Doc?” Graham clearly felt some need to clarify the obvious from his position on the wooden rocking chair by the back window.

The Doctor, still struggling to catch enough breath to talk, replied with a slow nod.

“C’mere.” Yaz pulled her in tightly, feeling the Doctor return the embrace a nanosecond later. They held each other for an eternity-filled moment before Ryan cleared his throat awkwardly and proceeded to ask about the plan for the day ahead. Yaz couldn’t help but be disappointed by the abrupt shattering of the moment, but knew she shouldn’t be reading into anything anyway, so unfortunately, it was probably for the best.

This place had an undeniable sense of gloominess about it, an almost tangible blanket of depression shrouding any hint of happiness. The longer they spent there, the more Yaz could feel it encapsulating her too, almost to the point where it was a stretch to feel anything other than sadness and fear. She and the Doctor had gone for a walk around the circumference of the village, leaving the others to find out any more they could from Maud and Ava, when Yaz bought this up.

“Arghh the misery of this pace is really catching isn’t it?” She shuddered.

The Doctor frowned before staring through her and questioning; “Is it?”

Yaz paused, was she alone in contracting this? “What?”

“Is it misery? This awful feeling?” She seemed genuinely curious, still eying Yaz strangely as they started climbing the rocky hill (covered in snow-dust) directly opposite to the one where the TARDIS was parked.

“Well that’s what I’d call it. Everything here is either sad or scary, and it’s suffocating.”

The Time Lord was quiet for a while, but she could almost hear her mind running a million miles an hour, processing the eerie situation in a way that would be impossible to reduce to words. Yaz could tell that the Doctor knew more than she was letting on and that the Doctor was not at all happy about it.

“What’s wrong?”

“A lot more that it seems.” She uttered, scanning the air with her sonic, and now it was Yaz’s turn to frown.

“I thought the air was reversing the sonic energy or something, how are you getting it to work?”

“Cause I’m the Doctor.” The (flirtatious?) wink that came with it was enough to momentarily break through the barriers of hopelessness and send a thrill of excitement through the officer’s body. “No honestly, it’s easier in the light, must have been the charge of fear being sent through the dark before.” Judging by her face upon looking at the readings however, perhaps it was not that simple.

“And that look? What’s that for?” She couldn’t hide the note of concern that quavered through her voice.

“I don’t-” The Doctor whispered through a sharp intake of breath, “I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“My nightmare was real.” Her voice was strangled, as though every ounce of her being was holding back the words on the Doctor’s tongue. “Oblivion’s taken you.” Yaz wasn’t following, surely she’d know if she’d been taken by a monster?

But apparently, she wouldn’t know. In fact, apparently the Doctor could be taken completely unaware too. The sonic was screaming that neither of them were real, that none of this was real. They had been swallowed by darkness and were trapped in the unforgiving psyche of Oblivion, according to the Doctors deductions. Although Yaz struggled to comprehend, a power inside her knew that it was true. But how could she not be real when she was thinking and feeling like normal?

Yaz suddenly became aware of the Doctor’s form being on the ground, face in her hands. “Doctor?” She knelt down cautiously, arm reaching to rest on the Time Lord’s back.

“It doesn’t make any sense, Yaz!” She nearly jumped back in alarm at the Doctor’s outburst. “How can we not be real all of a sudden and not know about it? How did we get to this place and meet people if none of them are real either? It. Doesn’t. Make. Any. Sense.” The furious questioning was directed more at herself than Yaz, but Yaz felt an emotionless laugher that didn’t belong to her rising in response. Hastily shoving it back down and trying to ignore her panic, she forced herself to comfort her companion.

“You’ll figure it out though, you always get it right in the end and save everyone.” She smiled, and the memory of the laughter vanished.

The Doctor looked up at Yaz, eyes glinting with tears, “I don’t know what to do.” Her voice cracked, filling the air with hopelessness anew.

“We’ll find a way.” Yaz breathed gently into the Doctor’s hair as she held her defeated form, this time with no outer distractions. After all, if neither of them were real anymore, what did it matter if she gave her crush away? The problem was, of course, that everything still felt perfectly real regardless of sonic readings. She looked down upon the houses from their position near the top of the rocky hill, her thoughts drifting to Ryan and Graham still maintaining their blissful ignorance to the truth that Yaz now faced. She swallowed down her jealously and focused instead on the woman she felt so strongly for in her arms, and how her heartrate had picked up considerably with the prolonged contact.

A little while later and the blonde was straightening herself up, wiping her face and fighting an inner battle over her pained vulnerability. “Yaz, I’m so sorry.”

“What for? You don’t need to apologise.”

“I do, I do. You don’t understand.” She shook her head, fresh tears evidently threatening to fall. “We’re not real anymore, Yaz. That means our existence is being erased from the universe, and we may’ve already been forgotten by everybody but each other. It’s all my fault.”

The Doctor’s words coursed through her, the realisation of the consequences building up in her mind in slow motion. Concern flooded her more at the prospect of a universe with no Doctor than one with no Yaz, Yaz was tiny and vastly insignificant compared to her alien friend. How many lives had been saved just in the time that Yaz had been with her? And the Doctor had lived an infinite period before that, inevitably saving an infinite number, existing as an infinite hero. All forgotten. But there was a crucial question begging for an answer.

“Has everything you’ve done been erased or just forgotten?” Yaz feared the answer.

“Honestly,” Their fearful eyes met, “I have no idea.”

Silence fell.

Yaz could feel the Doctor’s eyes on her. “Are you okay?” Yaz nodded absently. “Of course you aren’t, stupid question..” She trailed off.

Silence fell again and lasted for what seemed like years. But the quiet company meant more to both of them than either would ever admit; they couldn’t admit to the countless times they had held each other or held hands either, but most significantly of all, they couldn’t admit to their mutually explosive feelings for each other.

After a while, they were forced to head back to the others, both dreading the inevitable sharing of information that lay ahead of them. Back at Maud and Ava’s house however, they were met with more disturbing news before the Doctor could even begin to explain anything.

“Is she with you?” Maud was frantic.

“What? Who’s with us?”

“Ava’s gone off again, Doc.” Graham then explained that hours ago, they had been talking about Ava’s obsession with the darkness and how convinced she was that she would find her almost certainly deceased father amongst it, when Ava ran from the stairway and out of the door, having overheard everything, and hadn’t come back since.

While he was talking though, something extremely odd stuck out at Yaz: Ava’s father had been taken like the rest of them but had disappeared even from here. So, where was he? The Doctor, it transpired, was thinking exactly the same thing as she was, conveyed in the puzzled look they shared.

It was Graham and Ryan’s turn to question what was going on. Yaz watched as the horror of the Doctor’s heavy words hit them with the same confusion filled truth as they had her, but there wasn’t time for further thought and explaining as the Doctor steered the conversation back to Ava and the unexplained absence of her father.

“You mean- he might not be dead?” Came a quiet voice from behind her, causing Yaz to jump, having briefly forgotten that Maud was in the room with them.

“I mean, it makes absolutely no sense that he isn’t here if everyone in this place has been taken by Oblivion. What makes him different?” The Time Lord began to search the room, as though the answer would be written on the walls.

“Maud,” The Doctor asked a minute or so later, “Do you mind if I have a look in Ava’s room?”

Maud gestured to the stairs in answer.

“Right, Yaz, you come with me. Ryan and Graham, can you go out to look for Ava while it’s still light?” The three of them did as they were told, with Maud going to look for her daughter too, leaving Yaz alone with the Doctor once more.

“Why do you want to look in her room?” She asked as they climbed the narrow, winding staircase (unable to avert her eyes as she followed her crush..) up to a square landing with three light wooden doors leading off of it.

“There’s something different about her. She doesn’t have the same air of misery as everyone else we’ve met, it’s like she’s very out of place here.” They had bumped into a few more sad villagers on their travels earlier, who had appeared to be merely echoes of living beings, and thinking back to this, Yaz realised she was right.

The pair were in a colourful box room now, home to a bed suspended near the ceiling, above a large desk full of Ava’s pictures and books, and opposite a wall-length set of cupboards. The small window in between the crowded walls looked out towards the TARDIS on the hill, but there were markings on the glass, clearly to give the impression of two people standing hand-in-hand on the rock. Yaz guessed that this was intended to be Ava and her dad.

“Yaz, look at this.” The Doctor was holding out a drawing of a man underneath a rainbow of colours. “It’s like The Floating Lights, they must have invented them already.”

She studied the drawing, a tiny legend catching her eye. “The darkness hasn’t got my dad, only the light.” She read aloud, looking up to meet the Doctor’s curious expression as she finished. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means her hope is completely unextinguished, she isn’t giving into the darkness like everyone else. It could mean-,” The Doctor paused for thought.

“She’s still real?” Yaz finished uncertainly.

“Exactly. Oblivion can’t take her because she’s not scared or sad, she has too much hope burning away inside of her which deflects it.”

“Or had.” Yaz said sadly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if she overheard the other’s saying her father was taken by Oblivion and probably dead..”

“She might be losing that hope! We need to find her, she’s probably the only hope of defeating Oblivion!” At that precise moment, the door downstairs opened.

The two rushed back down to be met with Maud. “Still not found her,” She sighed, as if reading Yaz’s question from her mind, “I hoped you two might be done, we could use the extra help to find her before dark, there isn’t long left.”

So, the three set out towards the hill visible from Ava’s window, a place Yaz had thought to look as that was where they had met the young girl the previous evening. They bumped into Ryan and Graham emerging from a circle of houses on their way down the narrow pathway they had walked through in the opposite direction with Ava.

“We were thinking we’d look around the place we met her last ni-”

“Yeah, us too.” Yaz didn’t give Ryan a chance to finish. “She could see this hill from her window and had drawn herself with her dad on it.”

Before long, they had reached their previous meeting point, but there was no sign of anyone else. Maud was starting to despair, when the Doctor suddenly whispered: “Listen.”  
They all fell deadly silent, allowing faint cries to be heard from around the hill.

As they followed the base of the hill towards the sound, Yaz could start to make out Ava’s words: “Dad? Dad, where are you? I know you can hear me, I know you’re here!”

They saw each other at the same time, Ava was stood on the glittering pebbles that surrounded a shimmering pool of water and nearly fell in as she startled.

“Ava! What is this place? I’ve never seen it before.” Maud looked around as she reached out to her daughter.

“A pool of tears.” Everyone, including Ava, looked to the Doctor for further explanation. “They’re rare but can appear anywhere in the universe when someone’s devastation is so great that it can’t physically be contained. It relieves the weight of grief, of heartbreak, sadness and anger, and it is believed that the surface can sometimes take the form of the cause of the conjurer’s pain.” The last bit was riddled with sadness as the Doctor looked at Ava, whose face was falling at the realisation that she had not really seen her father.

As Ava sobbed into her mother’s arms however, the Doctor ushered her companions in to her. Was there more that she couldn’t say in front of the mother and daughter?

“To conjure a pool of tears, it has to be real pain,” She whispered urgently, “Which confirms the theory that Ava’s still real-”

“But how come she can still talk to us?” Graham interrupted with the exact question that Yaz was about to ask. Surely the real and not real couldn’t coexist and interact?

“Oblivion’s obviously very clever and devised a way to take people one by one without anyone noticing. We can appear to exist in the same place, but those who aren’t real are merely projections that the real people can see because they’re expecting them to be there. Only, I think Ava might be the only real person left.” She looked to where the two were now sat on the pebbles, looking into the tears.

“Why?” Ryan drew her attention back.

“Because it was so desperate for more victims, it took all four of us in one night.”

“Doc,” Something was bothering Graham. “I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but if we’re projections, where are our bodies and can we go back to them?” The deeply disturbing thought hadn’t even crossed Yaz’s mind.

“If I’m right, the physical forms of all of Oblivion’s victims are suspended in non-being.” At her three friends’ appalled looks, she continued; “Think of it like what you are when you’re asleep; your body’s in the real world but you aren’t. It’s a reverse of that. I’m assuming that’s what the reversal energy was that caused my sonic to burn up, and it would make sense if the victims are taken by nightmares in their sleep, and then the mental pain can be eternally fed on without the physical forms being in the way.”

She couldn’t pretend to understand how her body could currently be in a dream and her mind exist as a hologram, but the urgency of fixing the problem was more pressing for Yaz. Reminding the group that it was nearly dark, she started to walk towards Ava, praying that the Doctor knew how Ava could save them.

They reached the pool of tears and sat on the pebbles around it, the Doctor gently trying to explain to Ava the whole truth and how important she was.

“But what about my dad? Where did he go?” The young girl asked, confused as the rest of them.

“That is the one part of this that really doesn’t make sense.” Mused the Doctor, Yaz begged to dispute the ‘one’, but held her tongue.

“Unless.. Oblivion has transferred him back to his physical form as a way to extinguish your unbeatable hope and happiness, as a way to capture the last person!” The Doctor spoke slowly, but with rising volume as that unexplained knowledge that she was right returned. “He’s alive, Ava, when Emmoria is reverted back to normal he’ll be able to come back.”

An anger that wasn’t Yaz’s bubbled up inside her, and she was suddenly reminded of the laughter from earlier. “Doctor-” She began, but was silenced. The others had felt it too. They could feel Oblivion’s anger that the Doctor had worked out what was going on. And there was fear of what they were capable of too. Oblivion was fearing for its hold over them; how Yaz knew this, she had no idea, but she knew it was right all the same.

While they were all distracted, no one noticed the pool of tears slowly disappearing until a man started appearing in its place.

“DAD!” Ava cried, jumping up into his arms as he laughed, relief defining his features.

A quick sonic scan of Ava’s dad and; “Amazing. Thank you!” The Doctor sang to the darkening sky. “Now there are two real beings. The hold is loosening.”

“But Doctor, how do we defeat it?” Yaz couldn’t see where the situation was headed. Maud was explaining to her husband what had been going on and who the time travellers were, and they overheard his response, causing Yaz’s question to hang in the air, its answer no longer of the greatest importance.

“They were here overnight? But I was only here earlier.” He said, sharing his confusion.

“It kept you trapped in a single moment? Or were you asleep?” The Doctor enquired.

“Unless time goes slower in that non-being place? Like when you’re asleep and the dreams seem to take forever but they’re actually really short?” Graham’s wisdom seemed to surprise himself, but he was right. Time goes slower in dreams.

With that settled, they moved on to discover that it was Ava’s father, called Mark, who had come up with the idea of The Floating Lights and he had tried them only once- in the light of the day before he disappeared. The lights broke through the misery and fuelled the hope of an end to the darkness, giving Oblivion another reason to take him away. Ava’s face suddenly lit up in the almost-darkness.

“We could put the lights on now to make people happy?” She suggested.

“But it’s dark, the light will attract The Darkness.” Worried Maud.

“If everyone’s already been taken though, what does it matter? And don’t say me and Dad, because it can’t touch us.” She had a good point.

The Doctor looked uneasy even though she couldn’t deny the theory. The way to defeat Oblivion could only be by denying the fear and replacing it with hope, even if only for an evening, it should be enough to release someone from its grip.

Within a surprisingly short amount of time, Mark had raided his workshop on the outskirts of the town and gathered everything needed to create a trail of lights around the whole of the microplanet. With fingers crossed, a ball was sent up to the black sky, and suddenly the atmosphere was lit with colour. All across the sky saw a line of beauty like none Yaz had seen before, and everyone was too distracted by their awe to notice that something was wrong.

People were leaving their houses tentatively, as though testing the air, but soon joined the amazement, forgetting their previous fear in its entirety.

Yaz suddenly felt as though an icy brick had been dropped on her head and the next instant, she found herself sprawled on the floor in exactly the same place. Had it worked? Noticing that the others minus Ava and Mark were in the same position, she deduced that it must have. She turned in excitement to the Doctor, but the Doctor was nowhere to be seen.

“Doctor?” She called out in concern, alerting the others to the mysterious disappearance.

No response.

“Where’d she go?”

“What happened?”

Yaz didn’t care who was asking the questions, what she cared about was the Doctor. Something had gone wrong and no one had seen her leave. What if she was in trouble? Panic flooded Yaz’s body.

**The Doctor**

She had been expecting this to happen in some way, she was aware that Oblivion knew who she was and what she carried. She knew it may let everyone else go so easily, but it would cling onto her with all her fear and sadness. But she had let it, in the hopes that the others would be freed, and that had evidently worked.

Being reunited with her physical from was a nice surprise though, she thought with a cheerful sadness, at least that’s something to spend eternity with.

“It was too much effort to keep you separated.” She thought back. No, wait a minute, she didn’t think that. Laughter at herself rose within her. This was the strangest sensation ever, Oblivion was communicating with her through her own mind.

“You’ve always feared me.” This time there was a physical voice reverberating around the enclosed darkness that surrounded her, but the voice was her own. She could feel the speech being taken from within her even though she didn’t have to move her mouth. “I’ve never been more excited to meet someone.”

“Back at ya.” She spat.

“Oh really? Because I could live off this fear of me forever. It’s so abundant that I need never search elsewhere.” Her voice rang back.

“What even are you?” She hoped the distraction would be enough to allow her to scan around a bit. It was. Her voice told her that the Oblivion omen is a physical form of darkness and then proceeded to explain what she already knew it had been doing.

The Doctor had to double take when she checked her sonic readings, but they said the same thing as the first time she looked: she was still in exactly the same place on Emmoria, only stuck in the wrong plane. Essentially, this meant she was trapped in a dream, almost definitely the same as Mark had been. How to get back from this..

“You forget I can hear your thoughts, hear your fears. There is no way back.” Oblivion laughed through her. It was a mirthless, emotionless laugh that had never come out of the Doctor before, and she despised it with so much force that the very thought of stopping it caused the laugh to shatter into a thousand helpless echoes.

“How did you do tha-” But before Oblivion could finish, she had overpowered the words. Was Oblivion really that easy to overcome? Surely not. The ease with which she could overpower its voice however, gave her an idea of escape, but it would come with great risk. It had to be worth it to be certain that the people of Emmoria and her friends, who would still be there, were safe. She had to get out of here and get her friends home. The time she had spent here was probably already mounting into days back on Emmoria.

The Doctor could feel Oblivion’s rage as she began to muster up all the hope and happiness she had ever felt and raised her sonic as a beacon to channel it through. If she was being kept here because of the amount of fear and sadness she carried, surely there could be enough (if not more) hope and happiness to counteract it. Surely.

“You will never hurt anyone again!” She shouted excitedly, still forcing happiness out of her, “The universe is under my protection, and if you so much as try to take more souls, I will not be so merciful!” And as she uttered her last word, the enclosed space burst open and she was ejected from within it, but the effort the battle had taken out of her was too much.

**

Yaz was going out of her mind with worry. Even Graham and Ryan were concerned now after initially being convinced she had ‘just wondered off around the place to check everyone’s okay’. It had been three whole days and they had not seen or heard a thing. She wouldn’t do that on purpose, something had happened to her. They were staying in the TARDIS, which had thankfully let them in, and occasionally popping back to the village to see if there was any change. Yaz had immediately had the bright idea of trying to use the TARDIS to find the Doctor, but much to their dismay, she couldn’t locate her. Even the TARDIS herself was showing signs of distress, flashing the console lights and making odd noises, but there was nothing anyone could do except hope the Time Lord would come back soon. They couldn’t even think about trying to return to Earth without her.

Yaz was sat on the floor in the console room, drawing for the first time in a while, having taken inspiration from Ava and struggling to think of much else to occupy herself with, when she heard Graham’s shout from just outside the door.

Running out to the evening light, she saw instantly why he had shouted. A figure was lying motionless halfway down the hill ahead. With Ryan now at their side, they rushed over to whom they could now tell was indeed the Doctor. She was unconscious, unsurprisingly so as Graham had seen her fall from a twenty-foot height onto solid rock. But she would be okay, surely; she was the Doctor.

Half an hour later and the Doctor lay on the floor of the TARDIS, head resting on Graham’s folded jacket, still completely out of it.

“How long do you think she’ll be like this?” Asked Ryan.

Yaz had just opened her mouth to speak, when the Doctor suddenly sat bolt upright, with eyes wide and full of excitement. She gasped for breath before erupting into a cry of; “FISHFINGERS AND CUSTARD!”

Her three onlookers stared at her in confused amusement as she jumped up, continuing to mutter about this strange combination, along with mentions of happy memories and someone or something called Amelia Pond, on her journey down to the microwave.

Minutes later she returned, armed with a plate of steaming fishfingers and a bowl of custard. Sitting on the floor next to them, as though finally noticing they were there, she spoke:

“My favourite thing, haven’t had it for ages!” A childlike eagerness spread over her face as she dipped a fishfinger into the custard, took a bite and closed her eyes.

Her face suddenly contorted. “BLAARGH! That’s revolting- WHAT was I THINKING?!” She looked at them as though they had encouraged her decision.

Yaz struggled to bite down her own laughter as the others guffawed, but she was concerned for her friend at the same time, what had happened to her?

“So, erm, Doctor?” Ryan started, suddenly serious, “Where did you go?”

“It’s been three days.” Graham added.

She froze momentarily, “Three days?” And before anyone could say anything, she was at the TARDIS door, sonic blaring in front of her. They heard an enormous sigh of relief as she spun back round to face them, positively beaming. “Oblivion’s completely gone, the people here are a whopping ninety-six percent happy, and The Floating Lights are back!”

“That’s great and all, honestly Doc, but you gave us such a fright. Please tell us what happened.” Graham voiced the thoughts of all three of them.

Yaz didn’t miss the slight faltering of the Doctor’s smile as she mumbled, “Gave myself a bit of a fright too.” And she gestured for them to follow her outside, which they did.

Sat on the hill surrounded by epic colour, the Doctor explained to her attentive audience that Oblivion wouldn’t let her go with the amount of baggage she carried and the childhood-length fear for the creature itself that was contained within that. She had been trapped as though in a dream.

“So, how did you get back?” Yaz was mesmerised, beyond relieved that she had her Doctor back safe from the clutches of the monster.

“With an explosion of happy and hopeful memories.” She smiled, clearly reminded of a few, before continuing; “Every ounce of hope and happiness I’ve ever felt was summoned to be relived and broadcast as a light against Oblivion’s darkness. But I didn’t know what consequences that would have,” A hint of sadness emerged in her voice, “I could have lost all of those memories for good.”

Yaz was stunned that her friend would risk so much to ensure the safety of strangers by completing Oblivion’s defeat, but it also caused a new-found admiration. Thankfully, the Doctor had escaped with all memories intact, but the fact remained that she had never met anyone so blindly and selflessly caring.

Only the two of them remained outside a little later on, the air still lit with colour, when Yaz bit the bullet and voiced her awe to the Doctor. Her words were met with a blush from the Time Lord, before a babble of compliments came flooding back to Yaz.

“Oh, don’t be silly!” Yaz laughed, “There’s nothing special about me.”

The Doctor’s grin became upset. “Please don’t say things like that,” she was serious, “Yasmin Khan you are the most amazing person in the universe.”

There was no way that was true, Yaz thought with a questioning look.

“Don’t look like that! You are one hundred percent the most amazing person in my universe.” Her face lit up as she said it, and the look became a smirk as they both looked down to their subconsciously joined hands.

“I didn’t-” Yaz faltered in a flustered panic, she was giving herself away, but the Doctor then did something she never would have expected.

Feeling the Doctor’s arms wrap gently around her and a soft, lingering kiss being placed on her forehead, Yaz questioned whether she had actually returned to reality. But this love and safety was more than she could ever dream of.

“Facing the prospect of losing everything makes you realise what you have, and what you’ve had, that keeps you going. It puts into perspective how grateful you should be of that. So, Yaz, I’m extremely grateful that you’re with me..” All of it was whispered into her ear as they hugged, slowly setting her body on fire, until the last part, containing something about girlfriends, was partially obscured by the sound of inner explosions, but she didn’t need to hear the exact words to know what she had just agreed to.

They broke apart with equally ecstatic faces, both with so much admiration for the other and both beyond excited to face whatever adventures lay ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> All ideas and new characters encountered within this work are my own, any similarity to other people or existing work is purely coincidental.
> 
> And all that's left to say now is: I hope you enjoyed reading my little episode of Doctor Who, any comments will be appreciated.


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